Aeroponic advice

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oddssodds

Member
Years ago, I did a hydro system with sprayers on a 4/1 timer. I had reasonable results.

Now I don't grow anymore, but wanted to try out an idea I had.

I used a Ultrasonic misting element and a on off timer. Getting good root saturation, but things aren't going well. Pulled this cilantro out of soil and cleaned the roots. They seem to be slowly dying.

Trying to figure out if they are dying because of the plant, or because of something I am missing on the aero system

Ph 5.6
Nutrients Maxigrow 50% of recommended


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Drop That Sound

Drop That Sound

Well-Known Member
The problem is those ultrasonic fogger devices are designed to be used with clean distilled water, otherwise the thin metallic disc that vibrates at super high frequencies will break down and deteriorate rapidly. It's probably not aerosolizing very much of the nutrients either, and is basically re-purifying the fog back into clean water again.

Fogponics using ultrasonic technology is better left for propagation purposes only IME, like rooting out cuttings. Or for fogging out microgreens, by growing them hydroponically on screens using mesh bottom 1020 trays, because they don't need any nutrients to produce.

They supposedly do make special nutrient rated "grow" units that have multiple ultrasonic disk arrays, but they are very costly last time I checked, and no one seems to be using them.
 
O

oddssodds

Member
Drop That Sound said:
The problem is those ultrasonic fogger devices are designed to be used with clean distilled water, otherwise the thin metallic disc that vibrates at super high frequencies will break down and deteriorate rapidly. It's probably not aerosolizing very much of the nutrients either, and is basically re-purifying the fog back into clean water again.

Fogponics using ultrasonic technology is better left for propagation purposes only IME, like rooting out cuttings. Or for fogging out microgreens, by growing them hydroponically on screens using mesh bottom 1020 trays, because they don't need any nutrients to produce.

They supposedly do make special nutrient rated "grow" units that have multiple ultrasonic disk arrays, but they are very costly last time I checked, and no one seems to be using them.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info.

I just pulled the plant and this what the roots looked like. Am I looking at a situation, where there isn't enough dry air time in between mistings? Or is this because I was starting with a plant that came out of soil and had contaminants on it?


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Drop That Sound

Drop That Sound

Well-Known Member
That's a good possibility. Even high pressure aero systems need to cycle the sprayers on and off with a timer. They can't just actively spray 24/7, even if the air/water ratio when spraying is perfect. Not with good results anyway..

There very well could have been some kind of microbes or pathogens carried over from the soil.

That's the other thing.. The fog is also creates perfect environment for root pathogens to take hold, but the ultrasonic mist makers won't hold up to using sterilizing agents in the nutrient solution either. It won't disperse the chemicals up into the roots as well, just like with the nutrients. It also creates a lot of heat in the res if operating enough foggers to provide enough PPMs of nutes in the mist before the concept will even start to work.
 
O

oddssodds

Member
Drop That Sound said:
That's a good possibility. Even high pressure aero systems need to cycle the sprayers on and off with a timer. They can't just actively spray 24/7, even if the air/water ratio when spraying is perfect. Not with good results anyway..

There very well could have been some kind of microbes or pathogens carried over from the soil.

That's the other thing.. The fog is also creates perfect environment for root pathogens to take hold, but the ultrasonic mist makers won't hold up to using sterilizing agents in the nutrient solution either. It won't disperse the chemicals up into the roots as well, just like with the nutrients. It also creates a lot of heat in the res if operating enough foggers to provide enough PPMs of nutes in the mist before the concept will even start to work.
Click to expand...
I was running the fogger on 1 on / 4 off, but I did notice that the fog remained the entire off cycle.

It would be interesting to do a ppm test on the mist to see if it does indeed not atomize the nutrients.
 
Drop That Sound

Drop That Sound

Well-Known Member
Yeah, you might also need an intake fan to purge the fog from the chamber. That's how I have the mist maker rigged up in my hybrid fogponic cloner system. I use a seperate chamber to produce the fog, then pump it into the res, instead of just putting the mist makers in the main res. Then you can control the frequency much better.
 
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